The Guardian and Times report this morning that the Treasury is of the opinion that Hard Brexit might reduce UK GDP by between 5 and 9 percent and cost the Treasury up to £66 billion a year in lost revenues.
I have not seen the figures that support this. They were produced for George Osborne but the Treasury apparently stands by them. Instinctively I think they indicate a very likely direction of travel. I cannot think of any circumstance now where hard (or come to that, soft) Brexit will increase UK growth. Nor can I see Brexit changing wellbeing without the most radical change in policies, which I cannot as yet see the Oppisition promoting.
But this leaves a dilemma. If Brexit had been a product I was sold on the basis that it would increase the well-being of the country, domestic job prospects and cash for the NHS then I could now demand my money back. I would, very clearly, have been conned. And those who mad PE those claims to induce a sale would be guilty of fraud, not least because many of those who did so appear to have already been personally enriched as a consequence.
In that case why isn't this being said? Why are MPs, let alone us the voters, being denied the opportunity to think again as facts become more apparent? Or to be blunt, why are a tiny majority, many of whom were conned (there is no more polite word) allowed to walk us off a cliff?
Are MPs so witless that they cannot assemble a decent rebellion on this, and demand the democratic right to a second, honest, election, with honest in this case being the operative word?
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I consider that the answer to your last paragraph is a resounding: “yes”
Although I doubt you are considering the overpowering, truly monumental, size of their self-important egos’
“Are MPs so witless … ”
I did see figures for this but can’t find them again; no matter, it more or less stands to reason: there are many MPs who know Brexit is wrong, but whose constituencies largely voted Leave. Given that a reversal in Parliament would generate enormous anger amongst many Leave voters, any such MP would be looking at certain failure at the next General (or by-)Election. Distasteful though it certainly is, they would probably also be looking at a nerve-wracking few years as dire abuse, and possibly violence, mounted up.
I think it’s not so much wit that MPs need as the courage to face down personal attacks and to face up to the loss of their seat in Parliament.
It is a dire and very regrettable consequence of the referendum itself, and the manner of the campaign, and painfully ironic, that the sovereignty of Parliament, as exercised by MPs, has been so damaged. The referendum has corroded the integrity of public life.
Richard, the right have been given the opportunity to fulfil their decades long goals of removing the UK from the EU and implementing their chosen policies in its place. Primarily stricter migration rules and more free-market economic policies. To use a phrase of the moment they have the ”mandate” to do this. No amount of well-reasoned argument is going to trump their claims to respect the ”voice of the people”.
This is a onetime opportunity for the right to reshape the country, an opportunity given to them by a democratic vote. A vote for change but with no direction what that change is such that they can now colour it any which way they like. History is decided by the winners and in this case Brexit is decided by the winners.
So the rest have a duty to oppose
Surely?
“…they have the ”mandate” to do this”. I disagree fundamentally; the last Conservative election manifesto included a commitment to do everything possible to stay in the EU alongside another commitment to hold a referendum which, at their choice, was non-binding and, unforgivably, did not demand a majority greater than 50% because the question asked was so important for the future of the country.
Having allowed the electorate to be conned by outrageous lies during an ineptly designed referendum campaign, to suggest that the government has any sort of mandate to conveniently ignore its own manifesto is ridiculous.
The intention to exclude parliament, our elected representatives for God’s sake, from any oversight of the government’s plans for Brexit, on top of all the lies and empty rhetoric, feels to me very anti democracy, very anti the sovereignty of Parliament the Brexiteers claim to want and totalitarian, if not fascist.
Agreed
Absolutely. It infuriates me to hear one politican after another trot out the mantra that “there is a clear mandate for Brexit” and that “we must respect the referendum result”. That is like saying “I fell for a scam, but hey, because it was cleverly done I’m going to respect it and not seek redress.”.
It is far from clear what the ‘will of the people’ actually is. Only 37% of voters went for Leave; it is unsafe simply to assume that the 28% who didn’t vote weren’t bothered either way. Then there are the many who didn’t get a vote. It is Parliament’s role and duty to consider and assess the opinion voiced in the — explicitly advisory — referendum, then decide what would best serve the interests of the nation.
I agree, there are so many issues round the referendum that were mis-sold so to speak and added to that mix is the lack of planning by Cameron for a leave result, the arrogance of assuming ‘remain’ would win. Then there is the consensus that the the economy is safe with the Tories when it is falling to bits around us, but not a murmur from the press (by press I mean the re-tops which have the vast majority of readership).
I do wonder if this is what the neoliberals will use to jolt the UK into a new paradigm as described in Naomi Klien’s Shock Doctrine where disasters are managed to the benefit of the few however I know there are critics of that work for sure. It begins to look more like hubris combined with ignorance and mantras of free trade etc.
Glad to find we’re like minded on this
Agree entirely, Richard. Indeed I’ve been getting increasingly angry that this side of Brexit isn’t being pursued by MPs. Why? Because I know from talking to people at my sailing club every weekend, to my barber, my son (who voted Brexit with his partner, as did her parents), and people at work, that with the exception of one long standing UKIP supporter everyone says the same thing: if they’d known that all the promises made by the Brexit brigade were false they would never have voted “leave”. My daughter – who voted “remain” – and has a big circle of friends, also tells me the sentiment is the same her end. Of course, this is anecdotal but surely, there must be someone, or some organisation, that’s looking into this.
Incidentally, on a related point, I noticed in the debate between Ed Miliband and the odious IDS (doing his best impression of Trump and lying through his teeth)on C4 News yesterday evening, that while IDS claimed the country was so much richer thanks to Brexit because the FTSE was at an all time high, Miliband made the point that anyone whose been on holiday to Europe or the US this summer has certainly noticed they aren’t. Again, this is a complaint I’m hearing from many people who voted “leave” without realising the implications. And this is only the fallout from the beginning of a process which will only deteriorate further as the scale and scope of negative impacts become more visible over the next three to ten years.
Personally what I think what we’re going to see over the next year or so is public opinion turning increasingly against Brexit even in areas that voted “leave” as cost to ordinary people becomes ever more obvious (e.g. people booking holidays for next summer). I’m sure this is why the Brexiteers in government want to keep information under lock and key using the argument that has become synonymous with sleazy and corrupted deals across government “commercial confidentiality”. And of course, even Tories who are “remain” will go along with that if they want to win the election in 2020. So we’ll just have to hope that some brave souls in Whitehall leak as much as they can so we can see the truly devastating situation we’re heading into. The Treasury story you quote is a start.
IDS was appallingly bad – pure Trump
As he was in the Commons
And I am also finding many worried leavers
There can surely be few better indications of the (totally misguided) hubris of IDS, as emblematic of the whole BREXIT leadership, than that IDS (!!!) should allegedly have castigated Sir Keir Starmer – undoubtedly one of the more effective DPP’s of recent years – as “a second-rate lawyer”!!!
This, coming from IDS, is not so much the “trahison des clercs” and the “trahison des berks” – and that is being FAR too kind to one who would appear to have a faulty hold on reason and reality.
I agree
The treasury report is available here
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/517415/treasury_analysis_economic_impact_of_eu_membership_web.pdf
Some of the analysis is based on the gravity model of trade – double the distance halve the trade – it’s an empirical observation that still applies – distance matters! As MayP commented here a few days our you can take the UK out of the EU but you cannot take the UK out of Europe.
There should have been a bit more discussion about how the £4300 number was arrived at. It was not just plucked out of thin air.
Agreed
My guess is that it’s all about political expediency. The sole objective is to trash Labour by winning the next GE with a significant majority. Tory researchers will be number crunching in the marginals newly created constituencies to analyse the strength of UKIP and potential disafffected Labour voters. The Government will ruthlessly exploit the current weakness of both Labour and UKIP by saying anything to attract Brexiteers into their fold. I say ruthless because the interests of the nation & democracy will be a secondary issue, if one at all.
This is the game they’ve always been rather good at. Never let principle get in the way of pragmatism. However, in this instance, I’m not sure they fully grasp the degree and strength of the opposition both within their own party and the country at large. It will be a fight to the end (2020) with an uncertain outcome. Where is an Opposition when you need one?
I think that the Tories see an electoral advantage in being seen as the party who will efectively lead us out of Europe. I therefore think that they will do their utmost to suppress parliamentary involvement. I hope that Jolyon and his colleagues make some headway or/and enough politicians (even some Tory ones I understand) to enable a more inclusive process to emerge.
In terms of being conned about Europe though I fully agree, but I hold no hope of there being any reversals or refunds as promises and ‘facts’ are shown to have been untrue.
I mean look at the 2008 crash.
A crash that had its genesis in the purposeful deregulation of the American financial system by the American government, predatory lending by the mortgage industry who artificially enabled many who could not afford to own their home to do so (the FBI were apparently investigating this until 9/11 when homeland security became more important afterwards – there is unfinished business there). Derivative trading was also deliberately under-regulated so as to promote its market despite warnings from regulators.
Then, to top it all the American banks exported these high risk debts (cut as if by a dodgy drug dealer using baking power or other filler substances with a bit of pure cocaine – the real investment grade rated debt streams) across the global financial system. When the mortgages defaulted the promised income streams stopped and then panic started to set in because of the sheer volume of these bad debts that had been sold. Hey presto – welcome to the 2008 Financial Crisis!
And yet I have not heard of any politician of any national Government stand up and demand reparations from the US Government as a consequence of its actions and mis-management of its financial system. OK Iceland took its own Prime Minister to court I understand. But zilch elsewhere.
There maybe legal and constitutional barriers for such reparations that I am ignorant of but from a viewpoint of causualty there is surely a case to answer by the U.S.?
Instead, in the UK, the Tories get voted in and commence a policy of austerity on its people who have already been harmed by the US Government and its financial system. They tell us lies such as Labour bankrupting the country; that our economy is as bad as Greece and take money from the economy and wonder why it tanks! Later members of the same party then tell us that the EU is a threat to our sovereignty even though it is the US Government that has recently done more harm to us than the EU ever did!
Our politicians failed us in our relationship with the US and I see no reason for them to be any different about BREXIT – they won’t stick up for the little people who will be hurt by it and it was the same for us after 2008.
And as for Ivan hoping that the people will some how wake up when things get worse as BREXIT takes hold – I don’t see it Ivan. The establishment/MSM will just find another whipping post to blame and thus throw the populace of the scent like they always do.
But they won’t fool me.
I do hope that we leave the EU only so that we see how bad things can get and then want to go back in. That is the only solace I can find from any of this – BREXIT is something that just didn’t need to be done at all as even the Tory voter ‘remainers’ I talk to also realise.
I clearly don’t have your masochistic tastes
Masochistic? No. Just accepting at the end of the day that the lunatics now run the asylum and there is nothing we can do about it except let it run is potentially harmful course in what is this age of unreason we live in.
It is too early to tell what will happen – as I’ve said before I think that there will be winners and losers because of BREXIT and I just think that we ought to just get on with it and see what happens. The phony war around it will dissipate for a start. And if we end up worse off (because we can see the real evidence) then hopefully we’d try to get back into the EU and history will condemn the out campaign even more.
It is the best I can hope for given the circumstances Richard. I know what I’d rather see instead but that alternative does not exist.
Agreed. Almost everyone I know voted remain and my wife used the term “Like lemmings walking off a cliff” yesterday. This is quite a nice video from Scientists for the EU using the analogy of consumer rights. Gave me a laugh. Richard may have seen it as it covers many of the same topics as his blog. Enjoy!
https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu/videos/860701577365186/
I will take a look
The opportunity exists for Jeremy Corbyn to show his mettle tomorrow during the debate on the “Potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on UK tourism” to argue that the people of the UK were mislead and “sold a pup” in connection with Brexit and a Second Stage Referendum on the terms of the Brexit negotiated agreements must be agreed to by the current Conservative administration or failing this a free vote of MP’s on the matter.
http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CDP-2016-0169
Who decides that democracy has produced the wrong result? And how can that be answered without being elitist and undemocratic?
Democracy is about holding a government to account
Parliamentary democracy does that in a very particular way
And if that is not permitted we know we have the wrong result
Do you recall how it was determined that the poll tax was a mistake?
Will it take the breakup of the UK for the Tory right to realise they have over-reached? The further collapse of the pound? Resurgence of violence and smuggling in Northern Ireland? A large increase in taxes to pay for NHS services for returned retirees who can no longer afford to live in the EU on sterling pensions? All of these? Let’s hope not.
Perhaps a head turner for our government would be a petition by the folks that voted Brexit, but have now seen the light?
I will lobby my MP, a die-hard Tory, and back any campaign that reigns back the manic progress of the three musketeers that have been tooled up to pull the plug on our connection to Europe. Hats off to you Richard for your tireless campaigning. Inspiring.
More is happening behind the scenes
If there is indeed ‘more happening behind the scenes’ then those concerned will no doubt end up be treated as the ‘enemy within’ by the MSM and May.
I geniunely wish them all the best of luck for all the right reasons because they will need it.
By the same token, the vote to join the EEC in 1972 was mis-sold as soon it morphed into being a social and political union without the UK electorate having any say in that.
Can we please have the 1972 vote again? I doubt we would have joined in 1972 had we known what would evolve later without being put to a vote. Loss of sovereignty was not on the agenda in 1972 or, if it was, then it was concealed from the UK electorate.
Respectfully, that is ridiculous
How is it any different? Voters were misled in both cases.
No: no ine knew that in 1972
You are wrong
The “loss of sovereignty” issue is beginning to get tired now, please explain how you think the EU, with all the different member states, could possibly operate as a trade block without some external agency (in this case, the EU Parliament) to facilitate standardisation of rules and regulations relating to trade (which, after all, is the only area where EU rules applied!). Prior to the UK joining the EU, we had the British Standards Agency (Kitemark) who’s job was to ensure products/services sold in the different countries in the UK came to an agreed standard, that’s what the EU Parliament is for!
Free movement of people came as part of those unified standards (and, let’s face it, the UK has been THE BIGGEST advocate of Free movement, including encouraging EU expansion et al).
Sadly, I believe that you and others who are so delighted about the Brexit vote are unable to explain how 28 nations should be able to trade freely without harmonisation of standards, and are just harking back to a bygone era which will never be back again.